Sweet
by Glinda
Summary: A little - well actually quite a long - episode edition for 100 days and Shades of Grey...I know, I know...Its been done but i dont care!


AUTHOR: Glinda  
  
TITLE: Sweet  
  
CATEGORY: Episode TAG?  
  
PAIRING: S/J  
  
SEASON/SPOILERS: 3, it's in the aftermath of Shades of Grey...and there's a few references to 100 days.  
  
WARNING: PG   
  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, don't own anything. Just a poor little Uni. student trying to stay sane by letting her imagination run wild. Not making any money...just doin this for fun! Plz don't sue! Umm...I persume the song was written by Sarah McLaughlin...she sang it anyway so...Oh and its (kinda obviously) NOT MINE either!   
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Argh! Exams! Hate 'em! Fraid the long term work is gonna be on hold till after that and as I'll be bereft of a computer with internet access from mid-December till early February...trying to get as much posted before then as possible. I know epilogues to both 100 days and Shades of Grey have been pretty much done to death, but I never tire of them. So here's my spin on how they - Sam and Jack at least - got from his biting her head off in the corridor to him asking her to go fishing a couple of episodes later! After seeing a repeat of a couple of early episodes I can see just how far he's come under Daniel and Sam's influence over the years and when you think about it what he said was really kinda sweet. Oh and the black and white thing...I pinched that from Terry Pratchett (the man's a genius - kudos to Aenea for pulling off the manic cross-over thing so well) where two of the characters are arguing about faith and the nature of evil...  
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes than that - "  
"But they starts with thinking about people as things..." Enjoy  
  
  
"You act like it's not a black and white thing..." I quickly interrupt Daniel before he reminds me once again that I lied to them. My team. My friends. My family. I don't mean to snap but its probably fair as we're all but having a shouting match in the debriefing room in front of the General.   
"It's my job Daniel. Always has been. Goes with the territory. I learned a long time ago that there's no such thing as black and white...just numerous shades of grey. You wouldn't understand" I finish in a mutter. And suddenly all Hell breaks loose. Daniel's yelling about the military, and I'm yelling back about....I don't know what.   
"ENOUGH!" Daniel and I fall into stunned silence and turn sheepishly to look at Teal'c. He is standing directly opposite Hammond and exactly between us. "I am tired of your bickering. It solves nothing. All it has achieved is to further upset MajorCarter...And I do not believe that to have been the intention of either of you." We both flinch at his words but in an unusual act of maliciousness we appear unable to resist continuing.  
"What EXACTLY did you mutter before Daniel went flying off the rails, MAJOR?"   
"Yeah, Sam what DID you say." She's been sitting staring at her hands since the briefing descended into chaos 10 minutes earlier. She looks me straight in the eye for the first time since I returned...and I flinch from the coldness that barely hides the hurt and anger she's so obviously feeling in them.   
"I said, there's no such thing as grey here. Only white that's got grubby. SIR." She turns to General Hammond and rises from her seat beside me; "permission to be dismissed sir. I don't feel there's anything constructive I can add here."   
"Permission denied, Major." She looks across at him questioningly. "Sit down, all of you..."  
We all try to interrupt and explain at once and he thumps the table to silence us. We sit like kids in detention as he continues in a tight voice. "Given recent circumstances I am willing to forget about this DISGRACEFUL scene and believe that it is the product of recent events causing a break-down in team relations which can be easily remedied. You all have 2 weeks of downtime effective immediately after the end of this briefing. I fully expect ALL of you to have resolved your differences and dealt with your issues by the time you come back. If not then I will be forced to take drastic measures to either fix this team or disband it. Do I make myself clear? And if I so much as see ONE of you on base before then I'll be down on ALL of you like a ton of bricks...whether you're military, civilian or alien! This cannot continue!  
  
  
There's a song on the radio. And its REALLY pissing me off! I don't want to hear some sappy girlie song but I'm still listening anyway. Weird. I must be REALLY drunk. Good. If I'm drunk, then my has my head not shut up yet? This is SO unfair!  
  
# it doesn't mean much #  
  
I keep telling myself I don't care about what Daniel said earlier. That its nothing. That his words didn't hurt me. Didn't feel like a knife in my heart: not at all.  
  
# it doesn't mean anything at all #  
  
And in a way they didn't. Both his words and mine were just spoken in haste and anger. Given time we'll fix this, sort out the frustrations and anger that's obviously been building silently since long before I was stuck on the god-forsaken planet. And Teal'c: I know HE understands all about doing what you have to do because it's the right thing to do and to hell with the consequences for those around you. He's just pissed off with us both for being so damn childish earlier and for picking on Carter. I don't blame him. I'm royally pissed off with us too!  
  
# the life I've left behind me is a cold room #  
  
truth is: I'd pretty much felt numb since I came back from Edora. It had scared me. I hadn't felt that numb since...well, before the Stargate project. I was still trying to work out how to explain the epiphany thing I'd had about her while I was there. Deal with her being scarily emotionally and physically exhausted from working herself into the ground to get me home. And to deal with the knowledge that she'd only been allowed to because of Thor's insistence that they'd only work with me. Why the Asgard couldn't just have come get me I don't know...actually I do. That could've and probably would've blown the cover of the whole thing.   
  
# I've crossed the last line from where I can't return #  
  
Maybe I should tell her that. Maybe if I did then we'd have half a chance of fixing things between us. Even if it doesn't. At least I'll know my boundaries with her. Know whether Hammond was right that Carter and black ops work could never mix because - how did he put it?  
  
FLASHBACK ~ THOR'S SHIP  
  
"She's young and idealistic Jack. She'd argue that there has to be another way one that isn't 'morally suspect'. Plus, she has the utmost faith in you. If she's not as stunned and confused by your actions then they won't be convinced."  
"So you're asking me to lie to my team. To go out of my way to hurt them and throw 3 and a half years of friendship in their faces along with the code of practice that WE forged?"  
"This used to be your day job Colonel..."  
"Yes! That's why I retired! I couldn't deal with that. The never being able to trust anyone because they could be working for the other side or a mole digging out your weaknesses. I trust my team sir. Whoever's doing this. They're not on SG-1 sir. You said yourself about Carter and all things morally suspect. Daniel's a born diplomat...he could give you a list of reasons why our alliances are so much more important than material gains. And Teal'c - oh please the guy been up to his neck in strategy and diplomacy since before we were born: he'd call what they're doing theft! What do I have to do to convince you!"  
"I'm not the one making the decision. Thor is. As far as he's concerned he's had insight into your mind and he liked what he saw there. You're the only one who can fix this."  
"You already know I'm going to do it. Doesn't mean I have to like it." * sigh * "looks like Thor'll be the only one after this."  
"Only one who what?"  
"Sees good in me. Nice way to pay my 2IC back don'tcha think? She works herself half to death to bring me home and what do I do within the week? Throw in her face everything she believes about the way we do things here, everything she taught me to believe about the way we do things here. Oh yes she'll understand why I did it. That this is the only possible option open. That I was only doing what I had to do for the greater good. But she'll never look at me like that again."  
"Like what?"  
"You were right about her being idealistic. She wants to see the best in everyone even when she knows the worst - got this talent of making you not want to prove her wrong and see that resigned disappointed look in her eyes. Even me."  
  
END FLASHBACK  
  
# where every step I took in faith betrayed me #  
  
So I did. I betrayed them. Oh he can say the end justified the means. But I have to believe it. I have to tell her. I can't live with her looking at me like that every day for the next god knows how many years I work here.  
  
# and led me from my home #  
  
I need to have a reason to come home.  
  
  
I shouldn't be here. I should've stayed at home and continued drowning myself in alcohol...Its always worked before hasn't it? But here I am. I blame the alcohol. Somehow I let it convince me to stop beating myself up about it and actually talk to someone. Well...there's a first time for everything! So I walked - the amount of alcohol I've had tonight would make driving suicidal - halfway across Colorado Springs to see her with only the idea that I HAD to explain to her what I'd REALLY meant the other day. Thing is though, now that I'm here I've no idea how to say it. I don't even know if she'll let me in. She might be asleep: it IS 2 in the morning! Maybe I should leave it till the morning? NO, I suddenly resolve I'll chicken out by then. This either gets fixed now or it never does. Hammond was right. We either repair the team or destroy it. So I get up from my place on the stairs and finish the climb to her apartment. I ring the doorbell. No response. She's asleep. I see my giant green glowing EXIT sign and flee. I turn on my heel and head back towards her stairs - trying desperately to keep a straight line: falling down the stairs would just be plain embarrassing! As I reach the stairs her voice stops me in my tracks.  
"Sir?" I turn slowly towards her and realise I must look every bit as bad as I feel from the look on her face.  
"Carter...I..." now's the time for those words I can't say, "just wanted to say...look...I'm sorry. Bout everything in general at the moment. You're unlikely to let me in...and that's fine, really it is, I sure as hell deserve it. But, just...hear me out, alright? I guess in time we'll get past it but...look if I don't say this now the moment will pass and I'll always regret it! What I said to you in the corridor? About me not acting like myself since I met you?" She flinches and I scuttle forwards till I'm right in front of her as she avoids my eyes. "I meant it." Her head snaps up and I see the confusion and anger in her eyes. It's not what she expected me to say, I can tell. She opens her mouth to speak so I grab her shoulder with one hand while pressing a finger of the other to her lips to silence her. "Let me finish! I meant it. I've wanted to say it for so long and I finally do and you take it the wrong way. You've got to understand Carter. What you saw...what you all saw the last few weeks was who I used to be. I've done a lot of things in my life that I'm not proud of. I never...ever wanted ANY of you guys to see that side of me. I gave up black ops work not because I couldn't live with what I did every day, but because I went home and lied to Charlie every day. I hid behind the classified thing to avoid telling him the any of that stuff even the stuff that wasn't secret. I couldn't look into innocent eyes and see them accept my lies unquestioningly. You're obviously wondering where the hell this is going to but...there is a point! You've always seemed to have this...misguided belief that I'm this fundamentally good person. Truth is - I don't think I am. But when I make decisions, I look at you and I see that faith in my ability to make the 'right' decision and...it's exactly the same look he used to give me. Carter...I let my son down SO badly: and that guilt's NEVER going away...I couldn't face letting you down too."  
"So you play galactic hero because you can't bear to prove me wrong? I'm not buying it sir!" Dammit she's not getting it. I shake her shoulders gently.  
"No, that's not it! Why don't you get it. You and Daniel and Teal'c to a lesser extent, are a good influence on me! I'm constantly fighting a loosing battle to be the person you all seem to think I am. Why is it so impossible for you to understand that you having changed me is a good thing...?" I trail off into silence, trying desperately to gauge how she's taking my out-burst through a haze of alcohol. I realise that I'm crying and scrub desperately at my face in a too late attempt to hide my tears. In the silence that stretches between us I hear the song from the radio that prompted my journey.   
  
# and sweet, sweet surrender is all that I have to give #  
  
I wouldn't have pegged Carter as being into 'girlie' music...I always saw her as more of a rock music girl...Its irrelevant but, I guess I'm not the only one who doesn't know the other as well as they thought they did. Her face softens as the appropriateness of the song's words sinks into both of us.   
  
# you take me in, no questions asked #  
  
"Maybe you should come in, Sir?"  
"I'd like that, Carter." She closes the door behind me and we stand in her hallway staring silently at each other. I reach out towards her to steady myself as I feel my legs threaten to give way. She returns the gesture, silently supporting me - just like always.  
  
# you strip away the ugliness, that surrounds me #  
  
Yup, that's true. I realise that I'm drenched and wonder why. Oh yeah, it was raining outside wasn't it? I hadn't really noticed.   
"God I must look pathetic." She smiles slightly and nods her affirmation. She vanishes for a moment returning with a large towel, which she drapes over the radiator to heat. She peels the wet jacket and shirt from my skin like she did the defences from around my heart. If only the rain could wash away the stains from my soul as easily. I feel no embarrassment at my semi-nakedness in her presence...she's seen my soul stripped naked, nothing else even compares. She wraps the warmed towel round my shoulders gently and I gaze at her in wonderment. Catching me staring she smiles shyly and quickly looks away, so I raise my hand and turn her head back to look at me before murmuring along with the song:  
  
# are you an angel - am I already that gone? #  
  
"You know I do forgive you...no need to scrape the barrel and resort to compliments..."she mutters in response. I reply quietly:  
"If you can forgive me after this then you REALLY are an Angel." As I stroke her cheek gently I continue, "I will make this up to you...no matter what it takes - or how long. There must be something I can do..."  
"How about we stop trying to prove ourselves to each other and just be ourselves, hmm?"  
I nod quickly before she continues, "Thank-you for making the effort...even if you did have to get drunk to pluck up the courage!" Teasing me. After everything I put her through these last few weeks she can still tease me about daft stuff.  
  
# I only hope, that I won't disappoint you #  
  
I never seem to do anything but disappoint her expectations of me. Never mind her proving herself to me - most of the time I'm struggling to come close to her image of me. I tell her so. She's amused and cracks a joke about it being nice to know she's not the only one on a pedestal in our mountain.  
  
# when I'm down here, on my knees #  
  
She lets go of me for a brief moment and my legs collapse beneath me. With my arms wrapped round her I slide down her body to land on my much-abused knees. As I cling to her I'm bizarrely reminded of coming home to find Charlie clinging round Sara's knees begging forgiveness for having done something wrong that he knew he shouldn't have. He'd have been...what, four, five? Young enough not to be ashamed to literally throw himself at someone's feet to beg for their forgiveness. To think nothing of making himself completely vulnerable to that person.   
  
#and sweet, sweet, sweet surrender is all that I have to give #  
  
So I lay myself open to her. Baring my battered and bruised heart and soul to her, understanding for the first time my son's desperate need for forgiveness. Sometimes surrender is all you can give. I only hope it's enough.  
  
#sweet, sweet, sweet surrender is all that I have to give #  
  
Almost as though she read my mind she slides through my arms till she's crouching and at eye-level with me whispering, "Sometimes surrender's all I need."  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~   
  
I'm lying on the bed of her spare room. I pretty much passed out drunk on her so waking up I'm just grateful that she didn't chuck me out on the streets.   
  
# and I don't understand  
by the touch of your hand  
I would be the one to fall#  
  
Aren't girls supposed to be the ones who get all soppy and confused about this stuff? I've been spending far too much time with her...look at me! I'm over analysing stuff! I never do this. I wonder vaguely if Samantha had that effect on HER Jack O'Neill. And get an amusing image of the look on Charlie Kawalsky's face would've been if he told him and just what he would've said while nodding approvingly. "You've got it bad boy. Real bad. Go you!" And it hits me then. I'm falling and not just physically like earlier: inside too. Not in the dark horrible way like after MY Charlie's death but a good way. Funny how falling into light scares me more then falling into the darkness I so welcomed before. As short a time ago as last night.  
  
# I miss the little things #  
  
Little things. That's what you miss when people you care about aren't around. After I bought my house it was little things that I missed about Sara. Post-it notes and shopping lists on the fridge. The smell of her hair on the pillow. So it was on Edora.   
  
FLASHBACK ~ INFIRMARY  
  
"Miss me Colonel...Good grief sir...I'll take that as a yes then?!"   
Putting down the petite doctor he'd just lifted up and burled round in circles feeling rather silly: "Sorry but after three months of medieval medicine this place just makes me want to bounce up and down with joy!"  
"You really were home-sick!"  
"Hey sarcasm's my forte!"  
"Well I've had to compensate in your absence!"  
"What did you miss?"  
"I missed everything. Hockey. Chocolate. Coffee. Beer. TV. Obvious things that you'd expect - but that wasn't what hurt most. Y'know? Little things would build up through the days till it'd hit me like a freight train how much I missed home."  
"Like what? Hey, I'm your Doctor...its not just your physical health I take care of okay? Talk to me...I'm reliably informed it helps!"  
"That. I missed not being taken seriously. Being teased. Being lectured. I missed Carter and Danny babbling about stuff I haven't a hope in Hell of ever understanding. I missed Teal'c getting confused about 'Tauri rituals'. I missed that little smirk Carter does when she's trying not to laugh at something I said and that half self conscious half proud grin she does when she realises I actually understood what she just said. I missed Danny dropping stuff and losing stuff and falling over stuff and pushing his glasses back up his nose and getting into trouble. I missed Teal'c's obscure jokes and concise speech and bizarre taste in reading materials. Recognising the stars in the sky. Losing memo's from Hammond about my paperwork backlog IN my paperwork backlog! Eating Jello in the commissary. For crying out loud! I missed those damn snakeheads! I missed having you stick needles in my ass Doc! The smell of those candles Cassie gave Teal'c for his Kel'nor'eem. The 'old books' smell of Danny's office. The way if Carter's had the locker-room first after a mission the smell of her shower-gel lingers in the showers. The way it makes the three of us bemoan our love-lives being so pathetic that it's the only even vaguely feminine smell we've smelt in months and wonder if our aftershave has the same effect on her..."  
"I get it Colonel. You want some advice."  
"Looks like I'm getting it anyway! Sorry."  
"Tell the rest of your team this stuff: that is if you want to repair the damage these last few months are bound to have caused."   
Nodding, "Thanks Doc."  
"All part of the service Colonel."  
Pausing in the doorway. "I thought they were dead Fraiser. I thought I'd lost the three most important people in my life in one go. My family. And what made it worse? The gate was gone...not only could I not get home but I'd never know if they'd made it home. No closure. No moving on...I tried to, but I couldn't: not really. Not without knowing one way or another. How the hell do you go about telling some that?"  
"You just did Colonel."   
  
END FLASHBACK  
  
  
# oh I miss everything about you #  
  
But I told her the important stuff before I passed out. About the way I missed her so much that it hurt physically. Every. Single. Day. And when she wakes up. I'll tell her again. Only sober this time so that I can be sure she believes me.  
  
# it doesn't mean much #  
  
The song's right: it doesn't mean much her letting me stay after everything that's happened.   
  
# it doesn't mean anything at all #  
  
But it means everything to me.  
  
# the life I left behind me is a cold room #  
  
The past is behind us now and lying fully dressed on top of the bed in her spare room with our arms wrapped round each other I feel warmer than I have done in years. My past is cold and dead to me...but my future - that looks to be warmed by something I'm not sure I understand. A four letter word. I use those all the time: just this one takes FAR more guts to say. That little thing called Love. I might just tell her that too. After all I don't exactly need time to think it over - I had a 100 days on that damn planet to get used to it. And maybe, just maybe, she'll feel the same way too. Now THAT would truly be 'sweet'. 


End file.
